


Morning

by shadowsfan



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, M/M, some violence, tw for attempted suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-06
Updated: 2014-11-06
Packaged: 2018-02-24 08:37:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2575079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadowsfan/pseuds/shadowsfan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Davos survives after a plague turns everyone into zombies.  He thinks he is on his own but then he meets Stannis.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Morning

It had been hard watching them die, Marya and the boys.  The insidious disease had infected the whole of humanity in a matter of weeks that fateful summer.  Everyone except those chosen few who were forced to bear witness.  Davos had watched helplessly as one by one they fell ill, bodies ravaged by fever and shivering so violently that their teeth rattled like dice in a cup until they choked on their own vomit, gasping for air that wouldn’t come, until the shaking ceased with abrupt finality.  In the cold silence that followed, a part of Davos had been erased with each successive death until he was certain that nothing human, nothing caring, remained.  

 

What had come after had been harder to watch.  Death hadn’t been final at all.  Marya and his sons had opened their eyes and risen to their feet, in the same order in which they’d fallen.  Only they were no longer Marya and his sons, but something other.  They were not dead and not alive but something else─ horrifying, unimaginable.  Half mad with shock and fear, Davos had run, out into the street and through the city as the carnage began.  They had insatiable appetites, these undead creatures.  They attacked the living, ripping them apart and feasting upon their flesh.  It seemed that those few survivors had been spared only to feed the dead.  Yet for reasons that remained unknown to Davos he continued to live.  He found that he was good at running, at hiding, at scavenging, and most surprising of all, at killing them.

 

He’d been at it for months, he was pretty sure of that, though he’d lost track of time.  He’d been moving east.  Moving and fighting and rummaging through abandoned houses looking for food and a safe place to sleep for a few hours.  It must have been months, for these days there was a carpet of dead leaves on the ground and a thin layer of frost in the morning.  Anyway, it had been long enough for the adrenaline rush to wear off, for the instinctual urge of fight or flight to fade.  He was surviving, not living.   _Why?  Why go on?_  That was the question he asked himself as he leaned against the rough bark of a pine and placed the cold metal gun barrel into his mouth.  

 

Davos’ eyes were closed, index finger tightening against the trigger when a voice growled, “If it’s all the same to you, use a knife and do me the favor of saving the bullet.”

 

His eyes flew open and instinctively he leveled the gun at the tall, lanky stranger who had emerged from the woods to his right.  The man had a scruffy beard and blue eyes that made Davos’ breath catch when they locked upon his face and suddenly Davos knew that his question had been answered.

 

Davos didn’t use the knife, or the gun, and since that day they’d traveled together.  Stannis was his name and Davos thought that it suited him.  Stannis was strong and honest and tough as rawhide.  He’d sensed it from the first, but Stannis proved it the time Davos had reached through a gate to unfasten the latch and one of those things had come out of nowhere, hissing and snapping and had bitten Davos’ fingers.  Stannis didn’t hesitate.  He ripped the hatchet from his pack and severed  Davos’ fingers from his hand with one clean blow before the poison, if that’s what it was, could spread.  Afterwards he’d bandaged Davos up and found an old tool shed for them to rest for in the next few days.  

 

Davos didn’t have any illusions, he knew that his chances were slim.  They’d both seen what had happened to others who’d been bitten.  Every last one of them had been taken by the fever and had to be put down.  Yet Stannis stayed with him, and when his temperature began to rise, Stannis had insisted that it was most likely from his fingers being cut off and not from the zombie plague.  Davos was unconvinced.  Soon, the pain in his hand became too great and he was shivering from fever and he begged Stannis to end it now and not wait until he turned.  Stannis’ eyes had darkened and he grabbed Davos’ face roughly between his hands and had kissed him so fiercely that Davos couldn’t breathe and he clutched at Stannis’ arm with his one good hand to try to relax his grip.  Just as abruptly, Stannis pulled away muttering, “I won’t listen to any more negative talk,” and stepped outside.  Davos gulped in several mouthfuls of air and willed his pounding heart to slow down.  For the first time he thought about how his death might affect Stannis.  He’d been convinced that Stannis was made of stone, his own impenetrable fortress.  Maybe he had gotten it wrong.  Stannis was strong but surely they were stronger together. Davos knew then that he would recover. He had to recover.  He couldn’t leave Stannis alone.  Not in this world.  His fever broke the next morning.

 

More months passed and there was snow on the ground.  Other survivors had joined them, willing to follow where Stannis would lead.  Stannis had the idea that they should move away from the cities, farther into the mountains where there weren’t so many dead things.  There, they could find a defensible place to regain their strength, wait it out for a time and plan a logical next move. Taking the first watch, Davos leaned his back against a tree, rifle resting across his knees.  Occasionally he would steal a glance at Stannis tucked into his sleeping bag on the ground beside him.  There was something comforting in the soft sounds of his rhythmic breathing.  They couldn’t risk a fire, but the moonlight illuminated his features and Davos reached out his shortened fingers to caress his cheek but then thought better of it.  Stannis needed his sleep and his touch, no matter how light, was sure to wake him.  There would be time later, he was convinced of that now.  Eventually there would be time to learn each other, to love each other ─ time to be human again.

 

 


End file.
